Mo

I've seen a lot of freaky Asian cinema - and many of the strange horror/black magic stuff from the Phillipines and Indonesia makes your jaw drop but I must say, BOXER'S OMEN (or MO)has to be one of the weirdest if not THE weirdest films I've ever seen. There is a plot but it almost doesn't matter - just the mind-blowing action sequences are enough for you and your like-minded friends to enjoy. Demon bats, spiders, eels emerge from people's mouths, strange insects burrowing into people's openings, alligator's being cut open so a corpse can be laid inside to bring the dead soul back, man oh man. Now most of the effects are really cheesy and laughable but hey - this is almost 25 years ago! Then again, some of the effects are very EFFECTive - enough to make you gasp, while as I said, many will make you howl with laughter. Produced by The Shaw Brothers, who have made legendary kung-fu movies and such horrid big gorilla movies like Mighty Peking Man totally deliver the goods with this fun trainwreck of a movie - it's like David Lynch meets John Waters meets the Mystic Of Bali. The new DVD release is great - the print is spotless.

This one's definitely one to see, just to say you've seen it. That's not to say you won't get something out of it, but it's weird… it's tremendously weird! It starts off predictably enough, with a revenge flick set-up, but soon goes off on superbly bizarre tangents involving flying heads, automaton Buddhas and tons of maggots and oodles of vomit. It seems that anything to do with magic also involves maggots and vomit.

A word of warning to people - like me - who like to try to psycho-analyse weird films, books etc.; don't try. Your head will hurt. The best thing to do when watching this, is just to let it wash over you.

A late Shaw oddity that has elements of a classic Shaw occult film but with qualities that are very un-Shaw like.

The plot is about a Hong Kong gangster discovering a supernatural connection with a deceased Thai monk after the monk's spirit saves him from an ambush from a rival gang. Ignoring the spirit's pleas, the gangster goes home to his beautiful (and frequently naked) girlfriend. The gangster then goes to Thailand to challenge a cheating Thai kickboxer who gravely hurt his best friend in a match. After disgorging a live Moray eel in a hotel, the gangster decides that it's a good time to find the temple that the monk resided in. The gangster learns that he was a twin brother to the dead monk in a previous life and therefore their lives are forever intertwined! The monk was about to achieve immortality but a crazy Thai dark warlock poisoned his eyes with spiders and the monk died. The gangster's life is at risk if he can't defeat the warlock and break the poison spider spell.

That's enough description. I can't begin to list the strangeness that occurs in this film. Lots of rubber animals, vomit eating wizards, talking corpses, a flying alien head that hatches from a giant pink slime egg, lots of butcher shop offal, maggots, bats, Buddhist monks and breasts pressed against windows, all in the same movie! The photography is very good at points sometimes much better than other Shaw films but then we are plunged into a typical Shaw scene of garish colored lights. The art direction is very, very good. The pacing is uneven but the weirdness keeps your attention. At one point the film stops to spend a few minutes showing crocodiles with no dialog and no warning. It's not so bad since you are actively trying to figure out what you are watching. The vomit eating and chewed food sharing scenes might be over the top for some people.

I enjoyed the film but I also realize that this might not be a shared reaction. You are warned.

Ko plays Xiong,out to avenge his brother,crippled in a kick-boxing fight by Bolo Yeung.His hallucinations lead him to a temple and his karmic twin priest;their fates are inextricably linked, and that's bad,since the priest was killed by a black magician.Xiong initially sceptical is eventually convinced-the graphic scene of eel-vomiting seems to do the trick - and agrees to become a monk in order to take on the forces of darkness and save both the priest's soul and his own.This surreal and completely over-the-top HK trashy horror flick has to be seen to be believed.The special effects are weak,however you will laugh until it hurts watching several totally weird moments.The action is fast and the film is loaded with hallucinatory imagery straight from Jodorovsky's works.9 out of 10 for sheer pleasure of watching this surreal madness.

A shady Chinese boxer gets caught up in a web of fate, buddhism and black magic when he's in Thailand to avenge his brother who was crippled in a dirty fight with a thai boxer. It turns out in a past life he was the twin brother of a enlightened buddhist monk, who is now preserved in a state between life and death after being poison-spelled by a powerful black magician who wanted to stop him to reach full enlightenment and eternal life. Only the power of Buddah stops the semi-dead monk's body from decomposing, and since their fates are linked from previous lives, when the monk finally decomposes the boxer will die too... a horrible, messy death! So the boxer has to become a taoist monk and beat the black magician to break the poisonous spell and save his life and the eternal life of his ex-twin brother (are you confused yet?). But the black magician has a few cards up his sleeve too... or rather decks and decks of 'em to! The final battle between good and evil that takes place is in an inferno of laser beams, crocodile carcasses, weird magic, maggots, bats, magic relics, devouring of disgusting foods, adult baby birth, monk chanting, puke eating, monsters etc. etc. etc... You could go on and on and on!

At the risk of sounding like a fashion-blogger: GAH! OMG! I can't believe I haven't seen this before! All I can say is do believe the hype because this is an amazing slice of HK black magic-weirdness. And best of all it's not only "so weird it's good" like movies like Devil Fetus or Wolf Devil Woman, it's actually a really good, original, well-crafted weird film with good actors, production values, lots and lots of imaginative effects and impressive trippy cinematography... visually it looks nothing else! All the actors work fine but extra credit goes to the guy who played the black magician (he's sort of like an though-to-be harmless, half-crazy old hobo who gets sudden outbursts of extreme anger) - best voodoo-style screen black magician ever! Genius! Not a guy I would let anywhere near a chicken farm though... A question: Did HK producers hire their cast at the geek section at their local freak show or was it considered a normal thing to eat maggots, kill animals and puke live barracudas (!) in Hong Kong movies?

Even though I didn't find it scary (a little bit disgusting maybe) I had WILD nightmares about witches and black magic all night tonight. I even woke up at five in the morning scared as hell, decided it was too good to miss and fell right back to sleep. It was like the film's sweetness continued in my dreams.

Sorry catholicism, paganism, old school (pre-LaVey) satanism & Jewish mysticism - close but no cigar, buddhism is now the coolest religion on the block. An absolute must-see!